How Do You Add New Drivers For Graphics Cards?

[hexagram23]

I want to get new display drivers for my Nvidia 8800 GTS card, the newest one is from Nov.

I know you download them and install them, but I have Driver Sweeper and I was wondering what's the best way to uninstall the old ones? There was a thread a while back that explained but I can't find it....something about starting your computer in Safe Mode then using Driver Sweeper.

I'm on Windows Vista by the way, not sure if it matters.

[Cephius]

the best way to do it is to uninstall your graphics cards, you should see windows revert to generic VGA drivers and your resolution will reset to default. Then go into safe mode and run Driver Sweeper and delete the Nvidia drivers from your system. From there just boot back into Windows and install the new drivers.

[hexagram23]

the best way to do it is to uninstall your graphics cards, you should see windows revert to generic VGA drivers and your resolution will reset to default. Then go into safe mode and run Driver Sweeper and delete the Nvidia drivers from your system. From there just boot back into Windows and install the new drivers.

Do I run Driver Sweeper for Nvidia Chipset or Display? Thanks for the info.

[hexagram23]

I have another question.

About 20 minutes ago FFXI crashed and I got a message that said something about the display drivers failed or had a problem or something, but they were able to recover.

What exactly does that mean? It didn't shut down my whole computer or anything, it just booted me out of FFXI and my screen went black for about 3-4 seconds. I checked the error logs and as far as I could tell there was no info on it in them....also these are the same drivers I've been using for months with 0 problems.

Thanks for any info you give me, this is why I was asking about new drivers above.

[Cephius]

Just erase the display drivers. Chipset is for your motherboard, don't mess with those.

The nvkldlm stopped responding (or whatever its called) usually means your display driver is corrupt and it had to restart the service... you're on the right path, once you wipe and reinstall drivers it should stop that from occurring.

[Epical]

Everything Ceph has said is correct, but if you want to update your drivers you do not need to take out your actual video card. You can just go to Add/Remove Programs and uninstall the selection "Nvidia Display Drivers". Once that is done, reboot into Safe Mode, and run Driver Sweeper. Reboot again into normal OS, then install new ones. Done!

[Cephius]

I wouldn't recommend that, only because removing the drivers via add/remove programs could either A) Remove them while they're in use, resulting in a a crash/BSoD or B) not remove the drivers because they're in use, which is the whole point of doing this. Uninstalling from the device manager insures the OS releases the drivers so they can be deleted successfully. Not saying it wouldn't work... but just to be on the safe side.

[Epical]

I guess there's a possibility of that happening, but I've done that for every video card I've ever had and never came across a BSOD/crash. In fact, the Nvidia site offers the same instructions as well (as does the ATI site).

Meh, now you have an option of which way you want to do it. =)